Anti-Nationalism 4/5

The lies that kill

The problem of nationalism cannot be wished away. To do away with it will mean to eliminate the present the system that fosters it. This system ensures that a minority owns and controls the means  which wealth is produced and distributed whilst the vast majority who actually does the production owns nothing. The resources and wealth of the world must be owned and controlled by all humanity. Under such an arrangement, no one will care who goes where or who belongs where. Then nationalism and its present brutalities would have been buried.

We are facing critical situations for which socialism is the sole remedy. The socialist movement strives to trample down national boundaries, recognising the common link between the workers of every land— their poverty and slavery indicts the ruling-class as a robber class, establishes the fact, that poverty need not exist, that slavery can be abolished by the workers themselves, and that the quarrels of the ruling class are of no concern to the working class. The working class of the world have a common bond that transcends every tie of race or nationality—their urgent need for emancipation. What matters the name of the country of your birth, if you are a slave in that country? If you look at the problems that affect the vast majority of the working class in every country, you soon realise that nationalism, and concern for artificial borders between people, hold no solutions. Without you the masters are helpless; without you, the State collapses.

 What bond is it that identifies you with your lordly capitalist? You are chained to his machines, in his factories and workshops, and driven by a need to produce wealth for him. You are the robbed, he is the robber; you are the slave, he is the master. A bond of shame, a tie that is a degradation to every wage-slave. If you are loyal to the class that exploits, you are a traitor to your own class. It is in the interest of your masters that you should be divided by national and religious barriers. It is up to you, then, to study your class position in society, which is cosmopolitan and anti-religious in character. For it is only by so doing that you will become free in the truest sense of the term. Socialists do not care whether the capitalist class divides the World among themselves by rivers and seas, or by the lines of latitude and longitude. What concerns him, is the class ownership, which he works and organises to abolish.

Nationalism is, therefore, an illusion that has no basis in reality and is nothing short of an ideology that seeks to enhance the profit-making interests of the capitalist class. The only real division that exists between human beings is their access to the resources and wealth of the world. In this money-dominated world, the minority ruling class (the capitalists) own and control these resources and wealth - the land, factories, the transport and communication network, etc. The working class has no access to these and has to sell their mental and physical labour power to the former in return for peanuts.

The concept of nationality, the idea that an area dominated by a privileged class which thrives on the enforced poverty of that area's productive class, should grant to the latter the right to live there providing its members accept their wage-slave status and endorse the right of the privileged to live on their backs is offensive to any intelligent working man or woman. Those who promote such nonsense are the real enemies of our class and there will be no lasting peace in the world until the workers refuse to line up behind all the various brands of nationalism.

The cause of Socialism is and must be universal. The working class cannot emancipate itself nationally. So long as you are living in a society that forces you to be a wage slave, you must, if you wish to be free, join hands with your fellow workers of all countries in the task of securing "the world for the workers." Members of the Socialist Party have long since turned a deaf ear to the empty phrases of nationalism, and, instead, look forward to the day when our planet shall be a land of peace and prosperity—its wealth owned and controlled by its workers. This object, we claim, is far more worthy of the attention and support of workers than the empty phrases and chimeras of the nationalists. 

Anti-Nationalism 3/5

“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.” Arundhati Roy

Nationalism is anathema to socialists. The Socialist Party has always argued that the workers of all countries have more in common with each other than with those representing the interests of capital. We ask that workers set aside the reaction of nationalism, religious bigotry, ethnic hatred, racism and join together to root out the real problem itself—capitalism. We are all faced with the fundamental problem of capitalism which forces worker against worker not for their own interests, but for the interest of profit. Nationalism is sold to voters as a movement to liberate us all. And sadly many workers will back it. Unique amongst all political parties, both left and right, The Socialist Party has no national axe to grind. We side with no particular state, no government. We have no time for borders. Once again the socialist assertion that nationalism can never serve the interests of the working class is being attested to daily amidst the horrors of the war around the world. Workers are always the victims. They have to do the fighting and the dying, they are raped and "ethnically cleansed".  It is their lives and homes that become "collateral damage" regardless of whether or not they swallow the nationalist filth of their leaders. Yet they find themselves fighting and dying together for what will be a capitalist state that exploits them. These wars are not the results of ancient hatreds but are the result of capitalism and can, therefore, happen anywhere in the world, even here.

We, the people, the power to invent the technology to create abundance. We, the people, have the power to make this life full of joy and happiness. Let us use that power and unite to fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men and women have an opportunity for useful work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason and science. It is impossible to imagine how capitalism would function so smoothly without the poison of nationalism.

Working class unity enables us to combine our tactics for defending our class with the strategy of liberating our class. Socialists do not fall into the trap of nationalism which does not strengthen the campaign for socialism or create a united, class-conscious working class, but fragments and weakens it. Nationalism will not improve your condition one iota. Only the class struggle could do that and only with difficulty. Instead of tragically wasting time fostering nationalism, workers should be struggling for a socialist society without national borders. Most people do not get beyond the position of support for the country they are born in while some calling themselves ‘socialists’ progress no further than ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Until the hold of nationalist and racist poison on the minds of the world's workers is destroyed, it will not be possible to live the full and satisfying life of socialism. Stand up for yourself as a human being and fight for the only worthwhile end — the achievement of a free humanity. The Socialist Party’s object speaks of the means of production being owned and controlled ‘by and in the interest of the whole community’. This means what it says: all the people of the Earth will own the land, factories, offices and so on in common. And we will form a true community, one with shared interests but not distinct from or in opposition to anyone else or any other group. The global community of world socialism will truly be a positive notion, offering support and opportunity for all those who are part of it. Nationalism only bequeaths to the working class a change of hand which holds the whip.

Anti-Nationalism 2/5

What an extraordinary notion it is that so many members of the human race should be forced to remain on that small section of the earth's surface in which they happened to be born. Who gave the world's rulers the right to tell us which bit of land we should live on? Nationalism has indeed proved to be a more potent political force than class consciousness. The concept of the nation is a very real force in the minds of people today. The outlook of “us and them” is a strong notion in the lives of many people. The idea that the world is naturally divided into nations is widespread. But, in the face of its results, we re-assert the original socialist position that workers ought to act as a world-wide class with a common interest in working to establish a single world community without frontiers based on the world's resources being the common heritage of all humanity.

The phrase ‘Nation-State’ itself assumes that the states into which the world is divided are the political expression of pre-existing ‘nations’. In fact, it’s the other way round. It is the ‘nation’ that is the creation of the state. States inculcate into their subjects the idea that they form a community with a common interest and that the state represents that interest. The result is that people come to refer to themselves and other subjects of the same state as ‘we’ and ‘us’. Socialists do not speak of ‘we’ and ‘us’ in relation to so-called ‘Nation-States’ in which they happen to have been born or live. We know that, in every state, there are two classes with opposed interests: the class of those who own and control the means of production and the rest, the vast majority, who do not and, to live, have to sell their mental and physical energies to those who do for a wage or a salary.

Wars are not fought between ‘nations’ but between states, and states represent the interest of their ruling, owning class. Wars arise out of the conflict of economics between states, representing the owning class within them, over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic areas to protect these. Nationalism is used by states to win support – and cannon fodder – for wars. Our advice to fellow workers during any capitalist conflict is, first: Do not do anything, in word or deed, which might encourage further killings of your working-class brothers and sisters. And, secondly: Think carefully about the situation to see if the issue is worth a single drop of working-class blood. Is this an issue worth killing and being killed over? Socialists reply, a thousand times No! Nationalist feelings arise because of the incessant propaganda of the ruling class in each country to persuade the working majority that they are in some way essentially different from and superior to everyone from other countries. Without this propaganda, each country's government would find it very difficult to get its people to join up and fight in its unavoidable wars with foreign states. Historically, nationalism and national feeling have been the tool of the capitalist class for both winning and retaining power.

Workers, of course, do not share a common interest with their masters. It does not follow that if the "national wealth" increases, or if trade increases, or even if profit increases, that higher wages will be gained by workers. In fact, capitalists can only make a profit by appropriating the wealth produced by the workers to themselves; but in the topsy-turvy world of ideology, it seems that workers will only have good pay and wealth when the capitalists are doing well. So it appears that workers and capitalists share a common interest. In fact, the interest of workers is conditioned by the interest of the capitalist, in exactly the same manner as hostages held by a kidnapper: unless the kidnapper-capitalists's demands are met, they will not allow the hostage-workers to have what they need to live. There is a well-documented effect of hostage situations, called "The Stockholm Syndrome" in which hostages under duress began to identify with their kidnappers, and believe in their cause. Nationalism works in much the same way. It is the Stockholm Syndrome on a grand scale. The working class who are dependent (under the current system) on the capitalists, to whom they are bonded by state-boundaries across which they are not permitted to escape, begin to believe that they share an identity with them.

Nationalism is utterly opposed to socialism. Socialists, therefore, oppose nationalism in all its forms. The world of nationalism is full of contradictions, odd ideas and illogical notions. The idea that a line of a map, a so-called “national border”, should actually mean something concrete to the workers is laughable. Nations have taken a great deal of building. There is almost no nation-state that has not had its boundaries drawn in blood, its foundations dug out of human flesh. The illusions of nationality are yet another tool of the ruling class, intended to trick workers into thinking that this really is some kind of collective society, and to misplace their passions that could otherwise be directed into the class struggle. It's interesting that in a way people admit the logic of common ownership when they refer to “our country” as if it really does belong to all of us. It's this inescapable logic that will one day become clear in the minds of the workers, as they find all the meaning they need in socialism and put an end to class tyranny once and for all.

The socialist message is that working people everywhere must end the servitude, insecurity and poverty that capitalism is incapable of curing by embracing socialism, a world community without nations, class discrimination, production for profit or money. In socialist society to each according to their individual taste. We are all members of the world working class and have a common interest in working together to establish a World without frontiers in which the resources of the globe will have become the common heritage of all the people of the world and used for the benefit of all. It is clear, then, that socialists must oppose nationalism in all its forms: not just refusing to espouse their creed but defying the rituals, the anthem singing, flag saluting and other expressions of craven loyalty to the nation-state, that help enforce the idea of nation in our minds.

Anti-Nationalism 1/5

Across the world nationalism is rearing its ugly head again. Nationalists believe that all classes in society should hold allegiance to "The Nation". Socialists do not and point out how nations have always been the creation of a ruling group having nothing to do with working-class interests. What is a nation? It is simply the people and the territory which have been appropriated by a class of robbers at some point in history. It has less to do with a common language, religion, race, culture, and all the other things which nationalists imagine or pretend are essential ingredients in the making of nations. The presence of political nationalist ideas is an indication that some groups in society feel its real material interests are being frustrated by forces outside or even inside the nation. Of course, the desire to achieve their aims is never expressed in terms of their own needs only. In order to enlist the necessary working class support such arguments as “justice”, “freedom”, and “the nation” are used to justify the real bone of contention and to give it an aura of sanctity.

Socialism and nationalism are opposed. They are irreconcilable. For the socialist the propertyless working class have no country. The nationalist, on the other hand, ignores the class division of society and the class struggle. For him or her, the nation is all-important. The worker is encouraged to believe he or she has a country. Nationalism is, in fact, one of the means which capitalism uses to blinker the workers to class society. The Socialist Party urges workers to unite with workers elsewhere to set up a world socialist system where the peoples of the world will co-operate to produce for their needs on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life. This will be a society without frontiers and without nations. Certainly, socialism will allow the fullest linguistic and cultural diversity, but to make this the basis of a political programme is something altogether different. The goal of the socialist movement is not to assist in the creation of even more states but to establish a real world community without frontiers where all states as they currently exist will be destroyed. In a socialist society communities, towns and cities will have the opportunity to thrive – and people will no doubt feel an attachment to places that are real and tangible.

Socialists explain how workers are exploited not as individuals or particular nationalities, but as members of a class. From this perspective, identifying with a class provides a rational basis for working class political action. We argue that every nation state is by its very nature anti-working class. The “nation” is a myth as there can be no community of interests between two classes in antagonism with one another, the non-owners in society and the owners (the workers and the capitalists). And the state ultimately exists only to defend the property interests of the owning class at any given point in history. One popular misconception about nationalism is that it's synonymous with fascism. This is inaccurate. Fascism is the most degenerate form of nationalism but any kind of patriotism no matter how soft or innocuous can only be defined as anti—working class. It not only diverts workers minds away from the problems that surround them.

Nationalism has always been one of the biggest poisons for the working class. It has served to divide workers into different nation-states not only literally but ideologically. Today it is probably fair to say that a majority of workers—to one extent or another—align themselves to their domestic ruling class. After all, the ideology of nationalism ultimately means that workers and capitalists living in a particular geographical area must have a common interest. It has never been explained in what way capitalism administered by Scots from Edinburgh or by the Welsh in Cardiff will be better workers than capitalism administered from London. The simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same as far as the working class are concerned. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one. Nationalists cannot will or legislate away those problems of capitalism. No country in the world, no matter how independent or rich in resources, has yet succeeded in eliminating poverty, unemployment, or insecurity. For the working class, there will be wages while they are working and pensions when they are too old or disabled.

Nationalists see themselves as visionaries but they cannot see beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, conceived in pre-medieval times and now outmoded by the global nature of society. It is the Socialist Party who are the men and women of vision, who look forward to and struggle for a new world of common ownership and democratic control of society's resources, and uncluttered with the frontiers and class divisions which go hand-in-hand with "the nation".

The objective would be a stateless world community of free access. Given that nationalism does nothing to further this understanding it is an obstruction to world socialism. Because of the international nature of capitalism, workers are exploited everywhere and therefore the attack against exploitation must be on a broad front recognising no national barriers. Socialists say without any hesitation that there can be only one way to achieve lasting peace across this planet and that means an organised retreat from nationalism in all its forms and an escalation of the struggle for global working class emancipation. Workers own no country, so why should we care which section of the class of thieves owns which national portion of the world? Workers have a World to win, not nations to fight for.

May Day: Fellow Workers Joining Together

Once again we celebrate May Day, the international holiday of the working class. These May Day celebrations are small in comparison to the great numbers and strength of our class. But throughout the country, in every major industrial center, workers are uniting. Today is our great day, the day when the solidarity of the international proletariat is expressed throughout the world by demonstrations as the sign of solidarity. May Day is there for us to renew our bonds of international fellowship. Throughout the world, people today are adjusting themselves to the chaotic conditions created by world upheaval. Capitalism has left countries in ruins and made their peoples exiles and refugees. The capitalist world sinks ever deeper into the crisis. It heaps misery upon misery upon backs of the helpless and the vulnerable. For countless millions of human beings, life today is torturous hunger, unbearable toil, and dark boding anxiety. At the present time, war and pestilence and famine, started by capitalist rivalries, have got out of hand. Everywhere the reformers look for remedies. Yet the profits of the big corporations continue to pile up bigger than ever. Perhaps there has never been another May Day of such importance to the workers as the symbol of their international solidarity because there never was a May Day when capitalist interests were more solidly welded and soldered together in the international exploitation of the workers than they are at the present moment.

 When we come to see these events with clearer eyes, unclouded by media misinformation but instead with discerning insight and understanding in our hearts, we must realise that even the most adverse situations light the fires of revolt and foster the forces that feed the social revolution. We in the Socialist Party are not fooled into believing the working class is the midst of a "revolutionary upsurge" nor that the idea that they wallow in "docility". Our fellow-workers are not revolutionists as yet but there are fresh signs of hope appearing around the world. 

We revolutionary socialists, who celebrate May Day in the spirit of international comradeship throughout the world, are content to leave reforms to Tory and Labour Party mis-leaders. We know that the more the workers are organised politically and industrially on a revolutionary basis, the faster and the thicker will reforms be offered up. They are the desperate sandbags that defend the trenches of capitalism. But it will be a fight to the finish for the ending of capitalism. The drive for the establishment of a world socialism is unstoppable. 

On this May Day let us stand proud and upright to be counted. We need to get together. The world will always be against us if we are not for ourselves. We have been oppressed, we have suffered; we have endured, now let us unite and rise united against capitalism. “Why cannot we always be together?” is the thought in the mind of every active worker in the labour movement after the May Day demonstrations.

May Day is the preparation for social revolution, a trial mobilisation of the forces of the working class. When the workers of the world are united we are ready for battle.

The tyranny of profits

“The anarchy of the market produces the tyranny of the factory.” – Marx

“Market socialists” raise objections to the Socialist Party call for free access. Their argument rests on some dubious assumptions.

First, that left to themselves human beings will produce goods that other human beings do not need.

Second, that human beings have and always will resist producing things efficiently and well in the absence of outside pressures.

Thirdly, that because they are innately lazy, human beings will not work unless compelled to.

Finally, they say that in an economy without a market there would be no price system and therefore no way to compare the production costs of different things. The increased waste would arise, they claim. The prices which people are prepared to pay for goods act as signals which tell individual firms what to produce and what not to produce.

The market is not the answer. There is only one way to escape for workers from the detrimental effects of capitalism and that is for the economy to be run by the immediate producers themselves. Once in control of the process of production they would have no interest in wasting effort on producing goods that no one wants, on turning out goods of low quality, or resisting innovations that would make their work easier. Think about it. Even in existing capitalist society when people produce for their own immediate consumption, you rarely find people cooking themselves meals when they are not hungry, deliberately spoiling the food or shunning the use of a food-processor to lighten the work. It would relatively easy for people in socialism particularly with all the computer potential at our finger-tips to get together so as to work out what and how much we should produce and in what ways we can use less labour and resources– and to do so without the devastation of lives that occurs when this happens at present in today’s capitalist economy. The price mechanism does not let firms know what to produce in advance any more than the free associated producers are able to foresee all needs and all links in the production process. But they would be quite capable of working out what their main needs are likely to be, if only because they can calculate what is needed in the same way that capitalism does – by seeing what was needed in the past – and then adjust it according to their own democratically expressed preference. Supply can be made to correspond to demand

The view that socialism is equivalent to single-party with all industry nationalised and is the Marxist idea of the socialisation of production is widespread within the workers’ movement and it is a false idea. That such a flawed conception of socialism should continue, despite all the experiences of the working class, is witness to the power of misinformation about socialism and Marx. It is the result of the 57 varieties of reformism which passes for socialism. The overthrow of capitalism demands the overthrow of its State. A victorious working class would not institute a new state but rather use its machinery so as to be able to realise its real goal, the appropriation of the means of production and their irrevocable transformation into social means of production under the control of the association of free and equal producers. Although assuming functions previously associated with those of the state, it does is not become a new state, but merely a means to the elimination of all suppressive measures through the ending of class relations. There is no room for a “socialist state” in socialism, even though there will be a certain need for a central coordination of the socialised economy, which, however, is itself a part of the organisation of associated producers and not an independent entity set apart and against them. Workers taking over the system of production would use their power to eliminate waste.

Socialism is a system of planning and management in which the workers allocate resources and democratically determine priorities themselves. Such a system demands that the people themselves articulate their needs as producers, consumers and citizens, in other words, that they become the masters of their conditions of work and life, that they progressively liberate themselves from despotism and diktat of the market and its tyranny of the wallet. Socialism will be a democracy of various diverse workers and community councils. The rule of bureaucracy or technocracy is irreconcilable with the conscious control and direction, through planned democratic association of self-managing producers.

Socialism is the exercise of power by the associated producers.  Worker self-management, which is not exclusively or mainly limited to enterprise level is articulated by general assemblies, workers’ councils, and democratically elected local, regional, global congresses of workers’ councils in which the associated producers freely plan production on the basis of various plan alternatives, determine priorities in the satisfaction of needs, and decide the extent of postponed consumption (“socialist accumulation”). There will be a collaboration and coordination with communities formed in federated communes or civic polis. A democracy of workers’ councils also means the beginning of the “withering away of the state”, by handing over more and more spheres of administration to direct democracy -i.e. the immediate self-management of those concerned.

Socialism is the end of commodity production, of money, of classes, and of the state, i.e. the construction of a classless society.  Socialism is an entirely new social system resting upon the abolition of exploitation. Socialist production permits cooperative rather than competitive production to flourish. Socialism pre-supposes a social organisation based on co-operation and solidarity for the common good, i.e. self-managing socialism where humanity becomes the masters of its society and there is no danger of it becoming enslaved by new technology and automation. If we don’t achieve socialism then the threats are innumerable: annihilation by war; suffocating in the poisoned air; ecological destruction; massive poverty; widespread famine; and decline of personal liberties; and now as speculated by some futurologists, possible enslavement by robots. What a terrifying prospect we and our children and grand-children may have before us. The tyranny of profits and capital accumulation reshapes our way of thinking yet it is not the fault of science but how it is being used against us. 

Missionaries come to Glasgow

US Christian activists, Hope Scouts – which describes itself as a worldwide charity - are raising cash to spread the word in Glasgow – because they reckon it’s so poor and deprived. 

It has organised relief projects in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and Bangalore in India. It says Glasgow is now in their sights because of the so-called Glasgow Effect, a term used to describe the low life expectancy and levels of poverty in parts of the city. 

Hope Scouts – which says it was inspired by the scriptures to serve the poor, sick and suffering - say poverty, stress, alienation and pessimism are rife in Glasgow where, it claims, a third of children live in deprivation.

http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/us-poverty-group-targets-glasgow-because-its-so-poor

Socialists in Scotland

Most of us don’t own a single square inch of Scotland. It doesn’t belong to us: we just live here and work for the people who do own it. During the referendum debate, the partisans of independence were painting an unbelievable picture of how life would be so much better if Scotland was no longer ruled from Westminster. A social democratic paradise was to be established in Scotland. Reformism, despite failing to do so on every previous occasion it has been tried, would somehow be able this time to make capitalism work for the benefit for wage and salary workers and their dependents. Socialists didn’t believe this either. And with the dramatic fall in the price of oil, few can now support the idea that an independent Scotland could have afforded those reforms.

 The Socialist Party does not oppose reformism because it is against improvements in workers' lives lest they dampen their revolutionary ardour; nor, because it thinks that decadent capitalism simply cannot deliver on any reforms; but because our continued existence as propertyless wage slaves undermines whatever attempts we make to control and better our lives through reforms. Any fortune – whether in the form of money payments or subsidised services – that falls into our laps becomes an opportunity for those that live off our labour to lower their costs, and increase their profits. So long as there is a class divided society, it becomes impossible for us to enact measures to benefit the whole community. Socialists point to the continuing condition of our class as wage-slaves and affirm that whatever the gains we may receive, the wages system will take away.

The reason why lies in the very form of wage slavery. We are, collectively, compelled to sell our capacity to work – our labour power – in order to get access to those things which we need in order to live as members of our community – our food, clothes, housing, transportation and the like. The value of this labour power is the cost of maintaining and reproducing our capacity to work – and this entails the cost of keeping and rearing the next generation of workers, our children. This value is found through the struggle between ourselves and our employers, as they try to drive our wages as low as possible, and we try to prevent this or push up the price they pay us. It is not driven by the living costs of any one individual, but by the general costs of living in society. These general costs of living form a pressure on wages, which can force them upwards, as can the level of class consciousness and understanding of the workers; whereas counter-acting forces, such as the availability of a particular type of labour, general unemployment and the use of state power, combine to create downwards pressures on wages. All of which is to say that our wages are set by class struggle. This is a continuous struggle in which every gain has to be defended, and in which there is no relenting. If the price of one of our necessities of life falls, this will be reflected by a decrease in the upwards pressure on wages. Without a corresponding relenting in the downward forces on wages, our real wages would begin to dwindle towards a new level (either through direct wage cuts or by allowing inflation – that is a decrease in the value of money – to eat away at our spending power). Our objection to reformism is, then, that by ignoring the essence of class, it throws blood, sweat and tears into battles that will be undermined by the workings of the wages system. All that effort, skill, energy, all those tools could be turned against class society, to create a society of common interest where we can make changes for our common mutual benefit. So long as class exists, any gains will be partial and fleeting, subject to the ongoing struggle.

It is always difficult to understand why some alleged leftists will go to an infinite amount of trouble to avoid recognising an unpalatable truth. Although they cannot wait to propagate socialism, they are prepared to go on forever, alternately denouncing known enemies of the working class and supporting them for "tactical" reasons. They will discard every principle and make themselves personally ridiculous and contemptible by perpetual shuffling, all in order to gain something by manoeuvre which they cannot gain in open fight. They never do get anything worth having, and the working class have to pay the price of failure in the despair of the disappointed followers of these blind leaders. The cause of this lies simply in their refusal to recognise the fact that socialism cannot be won without socialists. They shelter behind the excuse that the workers are too ignorant and foolish ever to understand their own interests, but, as Voltaire very shrewdly remarked, "He who dreams that he can lead a great crowd of fools without a great store of knavery is a fool himself."

The Socialist Party stands not for an independent Scotland nor a united Britain but a world without frontiers. We have no objection to cultural diversity. Differences of language, food, music and the like will continue to exist in a united socialist world; indeed, would no longer be subjected to globalisation and “Mcdonaldisation” as today under capitalism. We would add that different cultures can exist in the same geographical area and that individuals can partake of elements of different cultures (you don‘t have to come from India to enjoy a curry). Our objection is to the exploitation of cultural differences for political ends, as for instance to set up or maintain a state or as the basis for a political party. The nation and nationalism are not an eternal and essential characteristic of human beings as some would have it, but are solely a tool for pursuing the further interests of sections of the master class at given points in history. The interests of our masters are not our interests. What workers have to realise clearly is that the interests of fellow workers in other lands are nearer to their own than are those of the masters in one’s own country. The bonds which bind worker with worker, irrespective of nationality, are those of class solidarity.

The voice of the Socialist Party in Scotland is a small but a constant one. All parties are in opposition to it but it persists. It will continue to expose those who, under the guise of liberators, continue to mislead the working class, included in this category being the nationalists, whether, left or right. What those who want a better society should be doing – should have done – is to campaign to change people's minds, to get them to realise that they are living in an exploitative, class-divided society and that the only way out is to end capitalism and replace it with a new and different system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, with production to satisfy people's needs, and distribution on the basis of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. Once a majority have come to this realisation, they will know what to do: organise themselves into a socialist party to democratically win political control and use it to bring about a socialist society. That's what socialist politics should be about.

We want the best in life

Capitalism continues to exist not only by force but also by the power of ideas. These ideas are instilled into people from the day they start thinking to the day they die. The schools and colleges, the newspapers, magazines and books, all the media, the church pulpits, are all the ways by which the thoughts of people are shaped. They are used by the class that controls them to argue that the society we live in is fundamentally correct and the natural one. By and large, the working class accepts these ideas. If it did not, capitalism could not be kept alive for very long. Because we are stuffed full of these ideas, workers will usually accept the division of wealth to different classes as fit and proper. Some of us are made to toil, others are made to prosper. Why complain if you have not the talent to make money and become rich? Don’t the wealthy provide you with a job? Wanting to change the natural order is only the politics of envy”

Marx always describes socialist society as a society of associated producers. Socialism is an economic system based upon conscious planning of production by associated producers (not by the State), made possible by the abolition of private property of the means of production. As soon as that private property is completely abolished, goods produced cease to be commodities. Value and exchange value disappear. Production becomes production for use, for the satisfaction of needs, determined by the conscious choice of the mass of the associated producers themselves. This a post-capitalist society.  Humanity will be organised into a free federation of communities where work will have transformed itself into meaningful labour, making possible the development of each and every individual’s human personality. The State, the division of labour between manual and intellectual labour, the separation of town and countryside, will have withered away. The socialist future in a classless society of democratically self-administering associated producers.

It is a welcome sign of the times that a serious exchange of radical opinion is now under way concerning what is socialism and how can it be achieved. The first step in a class analysis is to understand the antagonism of the two basic classes: capitalist and worker. The capitalist class owns and controls the means of production, distribution and communication. The working class owns none of these, and therefore, workers must sell their labour power to the capitalist for wages in order to live. The worker creates a product of value, part of which is returned to him as wage, and the rest of which is taken from him by the capitalists as profit. Thus is created the basic antagonistic contradiction between worker and capitalist, since the interest of one is, and has to be, directly opposed to the interest of the other. This most fundamental of contradictions will not end until capitalism with its private ownership and/or control of the means of production is itself ended and replaced with socialism.

Racism, like nationalism and sexism, is the product of class divided society.  It is an ideology which serves to divide the oppressed classes and strengthen the oppressors. Capitalism is the basic cause of war in modern times. Capitalism controls the entire globe and war result from the struggles of the elites to divide and re-divide the world. The way forward for workers is through the establishment of socialism. Socialism puts an end to wars and the dangers of war because inside socialism there are no capitalists who are interested in war profits and the conquest of new markets and possession of raw materials. The solution is to end the private ownership of the means of production and replace it with social ownership and production planned to meet the people’s needs, that is, socialism. Socialist planned economy abolishes anarchy of the market and thereby puts an end to depressions and unemployment. Instead of production for profit, there is production for the benefit of the people. Social ownership ends the exploitation of man by man because it is through private ownership of the factories and workshops, mills and mines, and farm-lands that the wealthy minority exploit the great mass of the people. Socialism does not destroy democracy but, on the contrary, enormously extends democratic liberties. There can be no real democracy – no rule by the people as a whole –while the means of production are owned and controlled by a small minority, the capitalist class. Socialism, for the first time, creates the conditions for the free expression of the people’s will. The only “liberty” which socialism ends is the liberty of the privileged class to own industry and amass wealth at the expense of the great majority. Socialism ends all exploitation and oppression of the producers by a privileged parasitical class. Socialism does not “worship” the State and with socialism the State “withers away”. Future society will be one of world-wide co-operation for the common good of all people, a peaceful, free world instead of one torn by rivalries, prejudices and war.

The aim of the Socialist Party is the ownership by the people of the World’s natural resources and the means of production and distribution. Socialism is a thorough-going social transformation and it can be achieved only by the majority of the people agreeing to and desiring it.

"Why should it just be the bankers, politicians and the idle rich who get all the best things? As a militant trade union we demand a standard of living for our members that enables them to share in the fine wines and fine times that the likes of David Cameron and his Old Etonian mates take for granted." – Bob Crow, RMT, Gen.Sec

Real Scottish Socialists

It would a most wonderful experience to live in socialism, yet, many workers cannot see socialism coming in their lifetime. However, the Socialist Party says to our fellow-workers that the next best is to fight for it.

It certainly does not require a great genius to understand that Scotland, like every other country, has a population which is divided into a majority who are non-owners and a minority who are owners. And that after centuries of joint development with England that all means of producing wealth are owned and controlled by large businesses whose shareholders are spread throughout Britain and the rest of the world. Just as certainly it does not need extraordinary intelligence to know that workers in specifically "Scottish" companies merely receive in wages enough to continue working—barely enough, as for workers everywhere.

Scottish workers don't have to attend a university to know that the ruling class of Scotland since the days of the Highland "Clearances" are any less brutal and avaricious than their English counterparts. The Scottish nation, whether independent or united with England, is divided into classes, as is society elsewhere. It is this division which accounts for the existence of the evils from which the Scottish workers suffer. English rule did not account for the fact that the depopulation of the Scottish Highlands led to the congestion in its industrial slums. The Scottish chieftains themselves turned out their own clansmen in order to make way, first for sheep and later for deer, in order to fill their own pockets. The notorious Duchess of Sutherland, for example, had 15,000 people hunted out in the six years 1814-20 and called in British soldiers to enforce the eviction. The political union merely facilitated the development of capitalist robbery with violence.

Capitalism was born and flourished on brutality, both at home and abroad. The history of Scotland, while differing in detail from that of England, followed the same general course. By their divorce from the land, a nation of peasants were converted into wage-slaves, exploited by a class ready to convert the world into one gigantic market. The forces of competition thus let loose may be held in check to some degree by national legislatures, but no final solution for the havoc they create can be found along such lines. The problem is essentially an international one, and must be internationally solved. That, however, calls not for nationalist parties, but for parties in all countries which clearly recognise the common interest of the workers of the world, namely, to achieve their emancipation as a class. The simple truth is that capitalism will be just the same as far as the working class are concerned. What is required is another system of society, not new administrators for the old one.

The defenders of capitalism adopt sundry devices to hide this fact of life and one of the handiest ones has been for years to play on the difference of nationality and the seat of government. Their anti-working class nonsense and buffoonery rests upon the political ignorance of the Scottish workers whose political and social interests—like their fellow-workers everywhere—are opposed to those of their masters and does not lie in schemes which will enable their employers to wring yet more surplus value from their skill and energy. Capitalism in Scotland, in England, America, Germany, Russia, in every country in the world produces the same set of problems to workers—poverty, unemployment, insecurity, war, and so on. These problems arise with sublime impartiality as to forms of government, climate and previous political history, they arise in democracies and dictatorships in the two hemispheres and in big and wee countries. Scotland is only a small part of an economic system which embraces the whole world. It could never enjoy any real autonomy or self-sufficiency in the face of the world market. From day one it will be buffeted by hostile economic forces entirely beyond its control.

The defence against this stratagem is, as always the re-statement of the socialist case and an iron confidence in the working-class ability eventually to solve their own problems without the assistance of any Lairds. The duty of the Scottish workers—like the workers the world over—is to-day—not tomorrow—to attempt an understanding of the basic nature of their problems and having done so, to organise democratically to take political power to establish socialism.

There are many parties claiming to be socialist who ally themselves with the capitalist class for temporary gains, ignoring the fact that working men and women will not make a distinction between those parties. If their votes are asked for in support of reforms which do not make any fundamental difference to their social position or problems, the workers naturally tend to support the political party that will make the most enticing promises, whatever be the label. Those who do not fulfil their promises are simply deserted. Too often, so-called ‘progressives’ and ‘radicals’ publish a mish-mash menu of wishful goals as an election manifesto. Such electioneering opportunism tries to give a movement size without substance and only raises false expectations and leave the way open for the inevitable disillusionment and collapse. On the other hand, had those parties based their case on sound principles, had all compromise been excluded, the parties in question would have been smaller, but would have raised no false hopes nor brought to many the inevitable despair.  Socialist education demands that besides advocating the establishment of socialism, the obstacles that stand in its path must be pointed out. So they offer their support and their vote for political parties that offer them half-a- loaf instead of the bakery and the wheat-fields.

When the workers get on the right track of understanding their position they will cease to worry over comparatively trivial differences in their conditions, whether as between nations or between districts or separate towns. They will recognise that they suffer varying degrees of poverty because at present they exist merely to produce profits for their masters and that it is a matter of comparative indifference to them whether these masters are English or Scots, Germans or Japanese. Their aim will be to abolish masters of every nationality and to organise the production of wealth for their common good.

The socialist case will continue to be heard and advocated in this part of the world despite our few numbers.

Why the SPGB?

In 1904 a small group of workers got together and formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain, aiming to bring the message of the necessity of a socialist solution to the gathering world crisis. That small group did have a few things going for it. They knew where to start and based their principles on the experiences of Marxist thought and action. The Socialist Party named the enemy—the capitalist profit system organised around the world. While supporting the workers’ organisations, the trade unions, the socialists in the SPGB saw their task as advocating action to establish socialism, the need for a socialist revolution, and for politically conscious working class to be the agent of social change. Members of the Socialist Party still hold that revolution is required if humanity is to survive the ever-present threat of extermination. There is nothing more threatening to the rule of the corporate oligarchs and plutocrats than the prospect of a party of hundreds of thousands that fearlessly tells the truth to the people. Only such a movement can in time become millions, then tens of millions and eventually win.

The Socialist Party can and will win the hearts and minds of people when they see us as reliable and unshakeable if we stand our ground. In due course, it will lead to respect and then support. Truth can only be ascertained upon the battlefield of ideas. The Socialist Party does not consider itself a substitute for other movements, such as peace groups and other single-issue organisations but seeks to unite people around one specific platform – the establishment of socialism. We continue along the road of political independence, building a party of, by and for the people. We disown the most well-trodden path of “lesser evil” politics. Those who call for a “lesser evil” make possible the greater evil. It has always been a dead-end strategy for working people.

In modern times the privileged groups are neither capable enough nor numerous enough to do the work of suppression themselves and so they beguile sections of the oppressed into the belief that the interests of all are identical with the continuance of privilege and they endeavour to weaken the movement for change by setting other sections at loggerheads. Such being the position the only thing that will combat capitalist movements is clearness of understanding—the spread of knowledge among the workers. Temporary expedients that give a movement size without solidity only raise false hopes and leave the way open for the inevitable disillusionment and collapse. While parties claiming to be “socialist” ally themselves with capitalist groups to gain temporary ends, working men will not draw a line of fundamental distinction between any of the groups that solicit their support. While their votes are asked for in support of reforms that do not make any fundamental difference in their social position, the workers naturally tend to support the group that makes the most enticing promises, whatever be the label—in fact, the newer the label the better. Those who do not fulfil their promises are temporarily deserted. The capitalists know this quite well, hence, their misuse of the term "socialist” so much lately.

Capitalism was born and flourished on brutality, both at home and abroad. As far as Britain is concerned, what a record of brutality is contained in the history of the treatment of its factory and agricultural slaves during the last century, of the treatment of the Irish, the African and the Indian. While there is no justification for a conclusion that capitalism can be knocked down with a feather, there is more and more evidence that people no longer hold their old confidence in capitalism. All around us all around the World, we have signs of a changing attitude towards capitalism. But there is an undeniable gulf between the objective revolutionary conditions and the political consciousness of workers that requires being bridged. Agitating for minimum demands realisable within the framework of capitalism has now outlived its usefulness, if it ever had one but we can affirm with absolute certainty, the working class will meet with disillusionment.  Our task is to build the socialist movement. The central issue is the burning need to replace the present profit system with socialism — a society geared to human needs. The Socialist Party uses its election campaigns to explain causes of the fundamental problems confronting working people today. It is the irrationality of the profit system.

Poverty, Cancer and Processed Meat in Glasgow

Glasgow has long been notorious for the astonishing gap in life expectancy between rich and poor. Men who can expect to die at the age of just 54 live within a few miles of those who will survive well into their 80s.

Now researchers believe they have found a key reason for this disparity – the regular consumption of cheap, processed meat, particularly by the city’s poorest men. Last year the World Health Organisation warned that processed meat caused cancer and red meat was also “probably” carcinogenic. 

High levels of phosphate in red meat was linked to premature ageing and kidney damage. And the study found that phosphate was much more easily absorbed by the body from meat containing additives. Phosphate occurs naturally in many foodstuffs, such as meats, fish, eggs, dairy products and vegetables. But consuming too much of the substance wears down telomeres, vital structures on the tips of a person's chromosomes that help protect against a range of diseases -- from cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer's and cancer. Telomeres are so important that some scientists even believe they can be measured to give an accurate prediction of when someone will die.

The researchers found the link between high phosphate levels and more frequent consumption of red meat only in men. The most deprived men had 7.4 per cent higher phosphate intake than the least deprived. The type of meat appears particularly important. Someone eating red meat might absorb 60 per cent of its phosphates, but would take in 100 per cent from red meat with additives, Professor Shiels said.

The Glasgow study analysed people from the most deprived and the least deprived areas covered by NHS Greater Glasgow. The results, reporting in the journal Ageing, suggested that phosphate from red meat consumption increased a person's biological age in contrast to their actual age. While some people in less deprived areas ate a similar amount of red meat, they also tended to eat more fruit and vegetables which helped offset the effect.

One of the researchers, Professor Paul Shiels, of Glasgow University's Institute of Cancer Sciences, said the main reason people were eating a bad diet was because they could not afford a better one. 

“It’s poverty, it’s not a personal choice. Addressing poverty is the route to tackling this properly,” he said. “You need to be able to afford to buy good-quality food. If you don’t and you can’t get quality red meat without additives, you’re going to have an issue.” [Socialist Courier emmphasis]

End Capitalism Now

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, a party of the World Socialist Movement, addresses itself to fellow workers. We stand for a socialised economy in which the profit system will be replaced by the cooperation of people. If you don't want a classless world of common ownership then the Socialist Party doesn't want your support.

 Between droughts and floods, it appears that vast sections of this planet are becoming uninhabitable. Millions of people are driven from their homes and plunged into dire suffering before the onslaughts of nature. While we call it `nature’, it is well known that behind the present destructive developments of natural forces, lies the responsibility of the capitalist class. This planet has been a great treasure house of nature, which the capitalists the owners of the natural resources, have despoiled. The environmental ravages of today are directly traceable to their activities. They cut down the forests and made great profits in selling timber and raising cattle or soya. With the forests has gone the undergrowth and root-system and thus the soil has been deprived of the natural spongy character it originally possessed, which absorbed the excess water of melting snows and spring rain. Hence, the floods which now afflict many parts of the land.  The great industrialised monoculture farms have been stripped of their natural protective covering of grasses in order to plant great fields of grain and then sprayed with fertilizer and pesticides. The top soil, necessary, has been blown or washed away.  Scientists do not hesitate to show that capitalism has destroyed the, has reduced the size of the lakes, has eroded the soil, has dried up the rivers and so forth.

Temperatures today are far more severe and subject to more violent changes than ever before. The dire results of the capitalists’ wastefulness and destruction are now effecting capitalist property as well as working class lives so now some governments are sitting up and taking. Private property must be protected. But any plan undertaken today to cope can only be based profits, not in the benefit of humanity as a whole. Such capitalist planning can be carried out only at the expense of the working class and by means of the exploitation of the working class. It is not for us to propose plans for the capitalists to solve their problems, nor to support any of their plans. We know that when the workers of this country take over the means of production, they will inherit the aftermath of capitalist mismanagement. But they will be able then to tackle these problems in the interests of humanity as a whole, not of a tiny minority. Science will then be freed from the main functions, which are shackling it today, namely profit making and warfare and full face can be turned to solving the ills that beset mankind. It will be understood then that natural resources will be treasured and used carefully. The great cities, those urban-centres of today, will disappear and with them the barren, unproductive waste-lands. The ancient harmony between man and nature will be restored, but on a much higher plane in which man will not be the victim of nature but its steward and trustee.

Today this profit system is old and decrepit, infected by incurable diseases, demented by delusions of grandeur and vain hopes that it can succeed in solving its ailments. The cure is not easy, and anyone who thinks it is, will be fooling him or herself. These are not easy times in which to make progress. The nature of the struggle is political. Socialist will not remain a minority; because our ideas conform to reality and are right, they will attract the majority of the people, and they will triumph. The ruling class cannot stop ideas or their spread because it cannot do away with the conditions of life that produce those ideas and it cannot prevent the rise of new generations of activists whom the future rests and who will not want the future to be like the past. Our confidence in the future is not the result of wishful thinking or of an ability to delude ourselves, but the product of study and understanding of society and history and the class struggle. Some people believe it is hopelessly impractical and idealistic to continue a struggle to end capitalism against such seemingly great odds yet experience with capitalism is going to have consequences. It is going to teach the people that if they want to survive, capitalism must die

 and that if they want peace and dignity they will first have to take power away from the capitalists. It is not the Socialist Party, primarily, who will teach these things, but capitalism itself. We’re educating all whom we can reach to the best of our ability — but capitalism is educating them too and in a way that will have deeper, more lasting, profound and revolutionary effects than any words we can speak or write. Whether they like it or not, capitalism is forced to continue to produce all kinds of opportunities for awakening people and driving them into a struggle against the conditions they endure. If socialists know how to stick to their guns and seize the opportunities offered them, then they will win over to their side all the other workers and then it will be goodbye forever to capitalism. 

Don’t be Duped by Religion

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” - Marx, (Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law)

Today the spread of atheism is unrelenting, so much so that Christianity itself is becoming increasingly  secularised. That far fewer people believe in God or Christ nowadays is some sign of progress. There is no “true” Islam or pure Buddhism, there is just the endless variety of ways humans try to interpret their world in order to act in it. Religious groups have a notorious history of stifling dissent by any means possible, even if, in Britain, nonbelievers are no longer persecuted, tortured and killed and that is because the superstitious myths and rituals with which religion cloaks itself are no longer taken seriously by the majority of the population. But there are countries where the heads of religion are still able to wield considerable power and influence. To belong to a different faith or to question that religion and try to have a reasoned discussion instead of blindly accepting its "rules" is to take great personal risks. To be a good Muslim is to possess a religious outlook that offends against the most elementary requirements of reasonable thought. And a society inhabited by unreasonable workers is one which is safe for the minority who prey on ignorance.

Religion is the badge of the mentally enslaved. It uses a cloak of mystification to reinforce its authority by promising a mythical afterlife as a reward for blind obedience and by making threats of eternal punishment, backed up by intimidation and persecution for those who do not submit. It has been a useful tool in the hands of the ruling classes to keep their subjects subservient. With their beliefs based upon “holy scriptures”, the religious looks at the world, embracing that which reinforces the beliefs, retreating from experience which conflicts with them. New knowledge, untried feelings, novel perspectives must be first mistrusted, then banned. Nothing must interfere with the dogma. But dogmatism is fragile. It is upheld by denying all other images than those which reinforce it.

Sharia-compliant Islamic banking is apparently expanding with even non-Muslims switching to Islamic banks. Islamic theologians, following in the footsteps of their end-of-Middle Ages Catholic and Protestant counterparts. In the Middle Ages, the dogma of the Catholic Church banned usury, defined as charging money for a loan. Well, but not quite. Sharia law condemns the appearance but not the substance. Capitalism is sharia-compliant.

There are no reasonable grounds for belief in the supernatural, or in gods, just as there are no grounds for belief in the existence of pink elephants, leprechauns, fairies or flying pigs. Socialists actively oppose all forms of religious superstition not only because such beliefs are unscientific and act as a barrier to understanding the society in which we live and its historical development, but also because of the socially divisive nature of religion. Workers who suffer from the delusions of religion are prepared to kill their fellow-workers in time of war; there are churches in America where blacks are not allowed; women are often considered subordinate to men and the Catholic Church will neither allow its women to become priests nor decide how many children they will have (although many Catholics now ignore the Pope's ruling on the latter).

Let us for a moment entertain this religious fantasy that the world and all of us who inhabit it are the children of a Holy Father (very rarely Mother) — never seen, but ever feared — who rules over us and must be obeyed to the letter of his commandments. Now, it tells us something about the condition of millions of workers if they can be persuaded that they are little children in need of an invisible Father, but let us examine the Christian conception of fatherhood. God, The Father (he also works as a Son and a Holy Ghost) tells us that certain forms of behaviour are wrong. Some of his children disobey the God-Father and do what is "wrong". His fatherly response is to invent a fearful, painful disease which will wipe out vast numbers of his children, thus teaching them to obey him in future. But according to the Christians, this is precisely what we should expect a father to do: the only way to teach workers the right way to behave is to kill off a few of them for behaving the wrong way.

 If God was a real parent he would need to be given help by others less deranged than himself; his children would need to be taken into care. That is what those who think they are God's children need: to be taken into care — not the care of another phoney god-image but of themselves. Transcending religious folly means learning that we are not little children destined to obey a master, but that we are capable of controlling our own lives. The Marxist materialist method allows us to understand both how humans come to create the ideas they hold, and how to change the world for ourselves. Workers must one day learn to believe in themselves. That they can really make a new and better world. And that nobody else can do it for them. We need to look to a genuine worldwide movement that offers the prospect of establishing a genuine global community through common ownership of the wealth of the world. Our materialist understanding is that by changing the way we live will change ideas and that will be liberating. Religion has always been about forcing people to conform in their ideas. The conformity required is that which meets the needs of the profit-stealing ruling class. No self-respecting worker will fall for it for long. Let us exercise our freedom to live as brothers and sisters and learn to live together as a human family of equals. As well as referring to religion as "the opium of the people", Marx called it "The self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again". The religious mentality exists in those workers who have not yet discovered the essential, exhilarating fact that we are the gods. We must make the future out of the material conditions which surround us: gods, prophets, bishops, gurus and mullahs are the illusory masters who people invent to tower over them. The socialist transformation of society will banish the capitalists from the earth and the gods from the skies—or to be accurate from the minds of men and women, where they have exercised their pernicious fantasies for too long. Those who choose to believe in powers beyond will be free to do so in a socialist society. Indeed, without the state to adopt this or that religious dogma as the official one, religious believers will be freer than they are now. Freer, but never free to tell others what to do. It will take more than a divine injunction from one of the “anointed” to tell socialists what we can think, say or write.

Nevertheless, the danger presented by religious fundamentalism is a real one. It threatens us as socialists at least as much as it threatens all other “servants of Satan”. Our ability to spread our ideas depends on the tolerance of minority opinions. Moreover, people whose minds have been addled by belief in magic, miracles and divine texts are unlikely to be receptive to socialist ideas. So we cannot say: “It doesn’t matter which group of theologians rule; they are all equally bad.” Of course, it matters. Socialists share a certain amount of common ground with non-socialists concerned to defend democracy and secularism. However, we must not jeopardise our identity as socialists by joining broad atheist blocs that accept the continued existence of capitalism. Only socialists, by holding out the prospect of real community, can act effectively to undermine the illusory religious community.

A world of free access and production for use not profit is ours for the taking. Make it so!

Socialism and a humane world

Most people consider "politics” boring, because what is generally thought of as politics is one set of professional politicians claiming to know how to make the lives of the majority even more profitable for the minority who employ us; another set quarrelling over how to do the same without it showing, and yet another set trying to do both. But politics is about power and the Socialist Party is about “people power”.  Politics is not profound or mysterious; it is the expression of class interests. The Socialist Party stands for the interests of the working class and therefore has as its policy the abolition of world capitalism and the establishment of common ownership. The profit system is hard to defend by rational argument and so many myths are used as a gloss over a system based on instability and violence. The struggle for a world of common ownership is the only struggle with a future and involves the end of mystification and the beginning of history made consciously by people free from dogma. Capitalism’s cover and camouflage have been blown away many years ago by Karl Marx.

The vital work of the Socialist Party is to encourage people to face the reality that their problems can be solved, and they can live a full, humane life, only through a social revolution which will overthrow the society of class ownership of the means of life. When these are the property of the entire human race there will be a world free of war, poverty, repression, of the tensions and ugliness which we live with today. In socialism, human beings will work and live together in harmony for the common well-being. Social relationships will be fashioned by the basis that wealth will be produced for its usefulness to people and not for the profit of a minority. In an unprecedented freedom, humans will be able to discover their true abilities; there will be a veritable explosion of creativity and people will look back on capitalism, with its wars, its poverty, its fear, its posturing leaders and the compliant, suffering people, as a black nightmare. To achieve such a new society, the world’s workers must look beyond the deceits of the leaders, to confidence in their own ability to run society in the interests of the majority. They must grasp the fact that capitalism is decadent, reactionary and repressive and that progress lies with the revolution for socialism. All the evidence encourages this conclusion; the ideas of socialism fit in with what we know of history, with the facts of our experience now, with all reasoned prospects for society tomorrow. Socialism will work and bring a humane world because it is based on reality. Socialists are the true realists. Socialism is a question of the entire re-organisation of society where the abundance of possibilities and potentialities is translated into reality.

 Neither cybernation or automation determine the direction which capitalism must take; only profitability does that and technological complexity can act to reduce profitability. But new technology may make more workers want to realise the potential through a political solution. We can welcome the new technology as another example of capitalism’s abundant productive potential which could be used to make free access easier in a socialist world while attributing to capitalism all the social conflicts such as unemployment and alienation that are arising. Capitalism has solved the problem of production; it has built up a stock of means of production capable of eliminating hunger and poverty throughout the world and even of providing plenty for everyone. But what capitalism has not solved, and cannot solve, is the problem of distributing this potential abundance. It is incapable of doing this as its economic laws decree that priority has to be given to accumulating capital, or growth. Production under capitalism is geared to making profits, and not to satisfying needs. The only way to solve this problem is production solely for use, but this can only be done on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the earth’s resources, both those made by people and natural resources; in other words, by abolishing capitalism and replacing it with socialism. Only on the basis of common ownership can the aims of the activists in the environmental movement be achieved. Only in a society in which goods are no longer produced for profit can the problems of climate change, pollution and adulteration be eliminated. Only in a society where goods are no longer produced for sale can high-quality, long-lasting goods be produced. Only on the basis of the common ownership of the earth’s resources can humans restore the balance which capitalism has upset between them and nature and live in harmony with their natural environment and live sustainably. We have been taught to organise co-operatively to produce wealth for a minority, and only the bare essentials for ourselves. There is nothing but our own fear of freedom preventing us from organising co-operatively to establish socialism, to produce for the use of all.

Socialism does presuppose a certain level of consciousness: before it can be established there must be a majority that wants and understands it. Such a socialist consciousness clearly does not exist today and that is why socialism can’t be established straight away. In fact, this is the only reason why it can’t, since everything else is there: a world-wide productive system capable of providing abundance for all and trained and qualified workers able to operate it. Those people who called themselves ‘socialist’ should devote all their efforts to helping a socialist understanding to develop. 

Let’s Change

Have we learned nothing from history? Has all the sacrifice and suffering for a better world been for nothing? We precariously perched on the edge of an abyss. The time has come when big changes are necessary. The profits of the capitalists and corporations are higher than they have ever been. The sham measures of government regulation have only increased exploitation and put still heavier burdens upon the workers. The boss class has done exceptionally well and, indeed, they have never been better off. Only by the establishment of Socialism can the World’s problems be finally solved and its people guaranteed a good life, lasting peace and decent living standards. Socialism means an end to capitalist profit and exploitation, for it will deprive the capitalists of their ownership and control of the factories and offices, mills and mines, farms and landed estates, transport, and ensure that production is organised for the use of the people and not for the profit of the tiny minority of property owners.  Because it abolishes the capitalist profit system socialism means an end to slumps and unemployment. Socialism means peace and an end to the danger of wars because under Socialism there are no longer capitalists who want to conquer new markets and capture raw materials and resources. Socialism ends all the restrictive policies of capitalism, ending the gulf between poverty and plenty, and frees the creative energies of the people and the productive resources of the world for gigantic economic, social and cultural advances on the basis of a planned socialist economy to create abundance for all to share in. Socialism means freedom for the people—freedom from poverty and insecurity, freedom for men, women and children to develop their capacities to the full, without fear or favour. The people cannot advance to socialism without real political power, which must be taken from the hands of the capitalist minority and democratically grasped by the majority of the people. The power of working people, united and who recognise the need for social change and participation in carrying it through, is capable of building socialism through an elected Parliament, creating the conditions for the establishment of socialism.

We are living in a society which is geared not to serving human needs but to producing goods, or rather commodities, to be sold on a market with a view to profit. In these circumstances food, and indeed everything else, can only be obtained in exchange for money. All social systems erect a moral, legal and intellectual superstructure suited to the interests of the ruling class. But at the same time, a social system develops a conflict between its mode of production and its social relationships, which can be resolved only through changing those relationships. Day by day, the experience of capitalism works to convince the world's workers that problems such as war and poverty will be eliminated only through a radical, fundamental change in society — by revolution.

Is the plight of humanity inevitable? No. Supposed eternal “truths” can be exposed and revealed for what they are, ideological justifications for the status quo. One attribute socialists possess in abundance and that is tenacity. We have the will, the determination and the power to overcome. Let us use our intellectual gift of problem-solving. When the socialist idea is sufficiently widespread the working class will need a political apparatus to implement their will for a revolution. That apparatus will be a world socialist movement which, when socialism is established and its historic function has been fulfilled, will go out of existence. Until that happens, socialists everywhere work to speed the change in ideas, to increase the pressures of persuasion on the workers that a class-free, money-free, poverty-free, peaceful society is the only way to eradicate all that is feared and hated and despised in modern — that is capitalist — society.

 The Socialist Party is not yet the mass socialist party that is needed to transform society. The Socialist Party are in no way trying to lead or cajole the world's people to socialism. We endeavor to raise political awareness, to alert the workers to the need to replace capitalism with socialism and to the fact that socialism must come about through our own conscious action. In the socialist revolution, and the society which will follow, the world's workers will be sisters and brothers together in a co-operative, abundant, peaceful and free human family. Will you help us grow? Let’s change.